Boise State football releases depth chart for Ole Miss game

The Boise State football coaches released their first depth chart of the season Friday for the Ole Miss game. The full chart is below. Highlights:

— Senior Cleshawn Page is listed as the second starting cornerback. Junior Donte Deayon is a returning starter on the other side. Page beat out sophomore Jonathan Moxey. The Broncos return eight defensive backs who started a game last year. Page was not one of them.

“Consistency,” defensive coordinator Marcel Yates said of what set Page apart. “He made plays. I thought what he did was from spring to now he seemed to work and he just kept getting better and better and better.”

— The third wide receiver will be senior Dallas Burroughs or sophomore Chaz Anderson. Junior Troy Ware is the backup to Matt Miller.

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The Broncos also will be without junior tight end Holden Huff. He is suspended for the game, which Harsin announced in the spring.

The only true freshman expected to play against Ole Miss is safety Dylan Sumner-Gardner, who arrived in January. Tight end Chase Blakley and tailback Jeremy McNichols will travel and will be kept ready to play but Harsin is hoping to redshirt them, along with the rest of the freshmen.

“Neither one of those guys will play at this point but they’re in a position where if things were needed we would play them,” Harsin said. “ As the season goes, we know things change. There might be a guy there we need to grab and utilize him as a freshman. If we don’t have to do that, we’re not going to do that.”

“We won’t try to redshirt him right now and that remains to be seen,” Harsin said. “He’s been practicing. He’s been taking second-string reps. He may have a role — that’s to be determined.”

The Broncos will take 70 players to Atlanta for the game, including Sumner-Gardner, Blakley, McNichols and quarterback Alex Ogle.

Other notes:

— The Broncos leave around noon Tuesday. They’ll visit the new College Football Hall of Fame and practice at the Falcons’ facility Wednesday and take a peek inside the Georgia Dome on Thursday morning.

— Harsin on the opener: “It will come down to the anxiety of that game. It will come down to the adversity faced in that game.”

— The Broncos start school Monday but that’s a Wednesday for their game prep. Harsin has told them they’ll need to focus. “(That practice) has to go well for us,” he said.

— On Ole Miss not knowing what Boise State will run: “It’s unknown, too, because you don’t know what they’re preparing for. It could be the right stuff. It could be completely wrong.” He added that coaches usually don’t know exactly what to expect until the fourth game of a season.

— On backup quarterback Ryan Finley, a redshirt freshman with no game experience: “We have to keep pushing the issue. If there are opportunities for him to play, we want him to play. He just needs to go do it in a real game situation. You’re never going to know until you let him go do it.”

— Harsin said the offensive scheme is not the old Boise State playbook. “We’ve just evolved,” he said. “ We’ve evolved every year. We’ve changed, I think, in a better way for us.”

— Harsin on his first game as a Boise State head coach: “I hope I don’t throw up. No it’s going to feel the same as the players. Excited. Confident through our preparation. At the same time, there’s a lot of unknowns going into that game. When we go out there, have we done what we need to do leading into the game? And we won’t know that until we get to the end of the game. I’m more excited than I am anxious.”

— Harsin on his confidence in the offensive line: “A lot better now than it was in the spring. Those guys, from spring through summer, have gotten bigger, better. I think through fall camp I’ve been very happy with the type of effort they’ve given.”

— Harsin on Shane Williams-Rhodes: “There are still schemes in our offense that throw the ball the same way they did last year. But Shane’s a guy who needs to have the ball in his hand. We’ve got to find ways to get the ball in his hands. Right now we’ve got some ways I think are pretty good.”

— Harsin: “Very eager to get started just to see where we’re at. Let’s go out there and play. The nice thing is we’re playing a quality opponent that’s very good. We’re playing a team that in the SEC right now is one of the top teams going into the season, has high expectations of winning their conference. So for us that’s awesome — what a great opportunity to go out there and play and play on that stage. Let’s see what we’re all about. Let’s find out what we’ve been doing. After the actual game, how it fits and is it the right stuff? If not, it’s time to regroup. If it is, keep building on that. We’ll know a lot more coming out of that game.”

(Note: Due to technical difficulties, the Harsin video is only of the first 10 minutes of the press conference. You can watch the full video here.)

About Bronco Beat

Dave Southorn joined the Idaho Statesman staff in 2013 and has covered Boise State athletics since 2005. A 2004 University of Colorado graduate, he focuses on the Broncos' basketball and football teams.